Email from a deluded casino manager

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Quite regularly we get emails from casinos who don't like what we have said about them. Usually they ask nicely if we could change something but this email we received recently takes the cake. It annoyed me so much I wanted to show you guys the sort of thing that goes on behind the scenes.

I have quoted the email text and inserted my responses that I emailed them (identifying information removed to protect the guilty).

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Quote:

I would obviously love to partner with your site and promote our casinos there but understand you had some bad experiences with XXXXX in the past and the chances of us partnering are slim.

Fact is, XXXXX came in a cleared the whole operation. A short search on the top affiliate casino sites all over Europe will show you we're working with all of them, and we're one of the most successful affiliate networks online.

I have heard this story from your company many times before, and I don't care what any other site says or does as they are irrelevant.

Quote:

I understand you choose not to send us traffic, and that's fine, but I wanted to ask that you take our brands of your site completely. A big part of what you write is your own view on things, and is not a true/complete representation of facts.

Our "view" on things? Yes of course. That is the very definition of a "review". We do not deliberately write anything false, nor can I see anything that we have written in the reviews of your casinos that is "not true". If you think there is something untrue then tell us specifically what it is and we will correct it, otherwise stop insinuating that we are liars.

Quote:

If you want your visitors to not play on our casinos you should just take us of your site. Bad mouthing our casinos by presenting incomplete/wrong information will not do you your site any good.

On the contrary, players appreciate being treated like intelligent adults and told the truth. We would rather have 300 casinos reviewed even if 250 of them are bad. We provide a valuable resource instead of a worthless advertising site like the vast majority of casino portals. How do you think a player that is ripped off by a casino feels when all they can find on a search engine are glowing "reviews" written by affiliates who only care about the money? And how likely is it that they will try another online casino? Do you have any idea how good it feels to get an email or forum message from someone saying thanks for saving them from wasting their money at a rogue casino, or thanks for helping them get paid? Money can't buy that. Our site primarily exists for the benefit of players, we are not part of a casino's marketing department like most casino affiliate managers seem to think.

Quote:

Players see our casinos on every top casino site out there, sooner or later they're going to know what you wrote might be out of date or just wrong.

I disagree. I am happy to leave that up to the players to judge. We believe in giving players accurate information and letting them make an informed choice, not an uninformed one as you would prefer. Players are far more likely that to listen to and value one properly written and accurate review that reveals both the positives and negatives of a casino than the multitude of "this casino is so good, its superb, best games ever!!1!! 99/100" reviews that you see everywhere.

Quote:

If you ever change you mind I'd love to know about it and I'm sure we can sort out a very successful partnership with you as well, while clearing our name on your site.

- some of my response here deleted as it deals with specific issues of rogue behaviour that would identify the casino group -

Once a casino or affiliate group abuses any trust they may have earned it is gone forever in this industry. It is your single most important commodity and by your email I can tell that your company still does not understand that fact. We would look like complete hypocrites if we changed our reviews and told everyone that your casinos are lovely.

Quote:

But if that doesn't happen, please remove our casinos from you site.

That is not going to happen.
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So what do you guys think? Should we just remove any review of a casino that we think is bad from our site? Would that make our site better?

Wow Ed, that is pretty amazing. I am surprised that a person involved in marketing a company would A) have the balls to challenge an independent reviewer like that and B ) not have the ability to proofread their content.

Why bother writing this email if you are this casino rep? You are just going to make yourself look bad and not professional at all.

I believe that before you can review a casino in a negative way you need to prove you made every effort to reach that casino to try and resolve the issues....and by every effort I mean you have sent several emails and have made several phone calls over a few week period and no one from the casinos management has responded to you...then...you can post all the negative or positive reviews you feel necessary. Otherwise I have a problem taking seriously the opinions of these reviews...More often than not most forums are not run as professionally as yours...the problem I find with a lot of casino review sites, is that the forum owner is generally not qualified to review a movie.

We get emails sot of like that all the time, although this is the first time we have been told to remove the reviews because leaving them up "will not do our site any good". That's just a very strange statement. I did get a reply from someone higher up the chain who was a lot more reasonable but I won't go further down that route.

Actually far more common is the email asking to be added to the recommended casinos list you see on the homepage and sidebar on the site. I'd say we get 1 a day minimum of those. And many from a casino that we've never heard of and probably just opened its doors the week before.

I'll give the person who wrote the email the benefit of the doubt on the proof-reading though - I am fairly sure that English is not their first language.

Highroller you make a good point about checking the sites thoroughly. Going to a casino, depositing, playing a bit, making a withdrawal and seeing how long it takes, talking to support etc takes a lot of time to do properly. Just out of interest I checked our database of casinos. We currently have 240 reviewed, and another 207 not reviewed!

We've actually been debating here whether to put a page of information up for the ones we haven't reviewed yet, along with a message that clearly states that we haven't checked them out. We don't want to give the impression that a casino is necessarily good to go by putting a page up, but on the other hand we can supply useful information like who owns them and where they operate from which can give some indication of how trustworthy they may be. And of course player feedback from those brave enough to try them!

3 members gave thanks for this useful post: CatFace, highroller, Savannah

I just don't understand these guys. Why don't they offer to improve their services, or at least explain and justify the acts for which they've been proclaimed rogue? This sounded patronizing, or almost like a threat. And besides, what would a reviewing site serve for, if they didn't provide their authentic opinion of a casino? These things p%#8 me off big time...

But you guys shouldn't worry - just keep up the good work, we're very thankful for your objective opinion!

Yep that one is definitely deluded. A reviewer IS a player. If you don't pay, your support is horrendous, you make the rules up as you go and this is the experience of most players, guess what? Bad review.

Their time would be better spent improving their reputation not asking this site to hide it.

"So what do you guys think? Should we just remove any review of a casino that we think is bad from our site? Would that make our site better?"

That is a tough question Ed and a loaded one at that. Finding a balance between your members and affiliations with casinos is not an easy one. I would think that all casinos not affiliated with should get no review at all.

I think that is why a forum is a good thing. Members can ask questions and find the answers by those who know best..........the players. This way you are in good standing with casinos as well as your members.

I am looking at this purely from an angle as a biz perspective. As a player and a member of course i am going to say hell yeah leave it up!

Being that i love to play devils advocate, let me ask everyone this. If a store does not stock a certain item would you find it odd that there is a poster in the window that refers to how bad the product is?

Usne - To answer your question. Yes it would be be odd to see that poster.

But what would not be odd, would be a poster that said - Although we do not carry this product((or in this case "these products") here is a list of them that we have absolutly no ratings for, good or bad....so if you have used this product or are thinking of giving it a try anyways, please advise us of your feedback, good, bad or otherwise.(this would be quite a wordy poster but, i think it clearly explains that this is simply a list of simialr products....nothing more)

All this to say, if you are clear that you have absolutly no reviews and that it is 'buyer beware" with this particular list... go for it and make the list.

That is a tough question Ed and a loaded one at that. Finding a balance between your members and affiliations with casinos is not an easy one. I would think that all casinos not affiliated with should get no review at all.

Definitely loaded!

That balance you refer to should always be heavily in the player's favour. In this industry with so little effective regulation and player protection, trust is vital. If you start giving people bad advice or you rip people off, then you're not going to be trusted and you become worthless. That applies to our site and it applies to every casino too.

The other thing is that we can provide a consumer protection service by telling people where there money is at major risk if they deposit at a rogue casino. I would never want to diminish that service by removing a review just because it might offend someone at a casino. If they don't want the bad reputation then fix the problem, don't complain about people telling the truth. Don't shoot the messenger! It just shows where their priorities really are.

Usne wrote:

I think that is why a forum is a good thing. Members can ask questions and find the answers by those who know best..........the players. This way you are in good standing with casinos as well as your members.

Absolutely. There is no better or more timely feedback than the experiences you get from other players. Word of mouth is king.

Usne wrote:

Being that i love to play devils advocate, let me ask everyone this. If a store does not stock a certain item would you find it odd that there is a poster in the window that refers to how bad the product is?

It would be strange. But remember most people who work in a store will happily dump on a product they don't stock if you ask them why they don't stock it. Its up to you to weigh the various information you have in your head and make a decision.

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